Tajani to push through priorities without backing of MEPs

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani will next week sign off on a list of draft laws to be finished before the 2019 European elections — even though six of the eight groups in the assembly have refused to back it.

At a closed-door meeting of senior MEPs on Thursday, Tajani said he would sign the document on behalf of all 751 MEPs even though he only has the backing of the European People’s Party — of which he is a member — and Guy Verhofstadt’s Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, according to four officials familiar with the talks. Together those groups have 285 MEPs.

The groups that chose not to back the move, which has been under discussion since October, include the center-left Socialists & Democrats and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) — the second and third largest political groups in the Parliament.

Many groups reacted angrily to Tajani’s move, accusing him of pushing through the declaration without a democratic mandate. “You’d like to think it would at least have majority support before being signed on behalf of the whole Parliament,” said Gareth Goldsmith, an ECR spokesman, adding that his group wouldn’t sign up because of “the political agenda” behind the plan.

A spokesman for the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, which includes Italy’s 5Stars and UKIP, described Tajani’s action as “an outrageous flouting of any pretense of democratic procedures.”

A spokesman for the Parliament rejected the suggestion Tajani had ignored the groups, saying he had “explicitly asked if he had a mandate [to sign the declaration] and no groups contested it in the room.”

The non-binding declaration, a draft of which was obtained by POLITICO, will also be signed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas on behalf of the EU’s member countries. It sets out policy areas such as security, migration reform and waste management that should receive “priority treatment in the legislative process … to ensure substantial progress and, where possible, delivery before the European elections.”

Less of a priority is “pursuing our commitment to common European values, democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights … tackling tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance [and] ensuring fairness and adequate level of social protection and social rights.” For those policy areas, “progress … is needed.”

“Just when the EU needs to turn words into action, this … declaration is taking the union to lower ambition,” said Maria João Rodrigues, an S&D vice president, adding that the draft declaration treats issues such as tax avoidance, working conditions and EU budget reform as “secondary priorities, without listing the concrete actions that need to happen.”